The last few weeks I’ve gone through some items you can sharpen up before 2026, along with some thoughts on what you can do to help take your small business further in the New Year.

This week, I’d like to go a step further and drill down even more to the most granular ( one could say quantum ) level: your perfect/ideal customer (or client).

This is the heart of every business — a business without customers isn’t really a business; the business exists to solve a problem for them, afterall.

You solve that problem in a unique way (differentiation) compared with others with the same alignment (other businesses that solve the same problem for the same set of customers).

If you’ve been in business for awhile, you likely have a good handle on this — even so, it’s always good to keep tabs on this.

Over time, the description of your ideal customer may change and different patterns may emerge – different age groups, more popular locations, new pain points in the experience – any number of dimensions can change over time.

While the problem you solve may not change much (though certainly can), who you solve that problem for may change, which means your market could be changing without you knowing it.

Not understanding if your market is changing, could mean you might not notice if your market is growing, shrinking, staying stable (or has gaps – or deltas) — this could ultimately lead to you miscalculating your marketing efforts.

So as we head into the holiday season, let’s take a closer look at who you are serving – and how to tell if there’s been any changes you may need to account for in 2026.

If you haven’t done so already, think back to when you started your business and reflect on who you started your business for – and what specific problem (or problems) you aimed to solve for them through your business.

As mentioned, if you’ve been in business for awhile, you likely have a good handle on this, but this can serve as a baseline for the rest of the review process.

If the original picture of your ideal customer/client is still fuzzy, this may be a great time to dig in and give it more clarity/resolution moving forward.

Create Ideal Customer/Client Profiles

With your original profile in mind, now you can start developing a generalized “customer/client profile” – generic stand-ins for your ideal customer.

You might call your profiles “Bob” or “Sally” – some general handle to help you describe them – specifically.

For example – “Bob” may be between 35-50 years old, owns a large home that is 20+ years old, married with some children and lives near/close your office/headquarters.

“Sally” may be 40+ years old, single, living in a small home that is in a high-end end neighborhood inside your service area.

You may have 200 “Bobs” or 50 “Sallys” in your market – using generalized descriptions allows you to get a rough idea of how many of those profile types exist in your market.

You might have many of these, by the way – you could have “Bob”, “Sally”, “William” and “Susan”; any number of profiles that are generalized and grouped together.

If you’re not sure – just start with one (keep things simple).

Use Recent Reviews, Feedback & Sales (CRM) Data

Look through your most recent reviews, any feedback mechanisms you have and sales data (in, hopefully, a CRM).

You can get as granular as you need to here, but think back to some of those best customers/clients you’ve worked with – do they still match your original ideal customer profile?

If they still match your existing ideal customer profile – are they still as frequent as they have been in the past?

If they don’t quite fit your original profile, what new patterns are emerging? Are there any new generalized descriptions you can use to group them together?

Are there any potential gaps between your original profile and any new customer patterns you may be missing out on?

Update (Or Add New) Ideal Customer/Client Profiles

If your customer profiles look pretty much the same and are consistent even in recent data, then you might not need to update your profiles too much (but be aware there can be different things you might miss if there are even small changes).

If you notice different trends emerging in newer data, it could mean that your ideal customer could be changing – even subtle changes can mean you might need some adjustments to your digital marketing.

You may, perhaps, only need to update your current profile – or if you notice trends that are distinctly different from your current profile, a new profile may be needed to help you adjust your digital marketing.

Keep Your Customers At The Heart Of Your Digital Marketing

By taking a closer look at your customer profiles, it becomes significantly easier to either continue doing what’s working with your digital marketing – or integrate adjustments if anything is changing in those profiles.

The important thing here is that you keep your customers at the very heart of everything you do – whether it’s your branding, website, your content, search or social.

And keeping your customers at the heart of everything you do means having a deep understanding of them – and an understanding if that’s changing heading into 2026.